Chapter Eighteen
Dismal’s big anxious eyes told me at five o’clock what he wanted, so I helped him into the bath and ordered him to do it there, me showering the flow down as it came out. I slept on till he licked my face with his curried tongue at half past seven, indicating he wanted to do something the bath hadn’t been designed to take away so easily, so I hurriedly dressed and led him downstairs, thinking him more trouble than in the days when I had a car full of kids.
As I sat down for breakfast my neighbours from hell came in, fresh faced and looking years younger, eager for life on the road. I’d never seen anyone eat such big breakfasts with one hand, each holding that of the other. Dismal reconnoitered his plate on the floor, and began with a slice of fried bread.
“It was so kind of you,” Edna said to me between mouthfuls, “to suggest we stay the night here.”
“It was.” George stuffed his mouth with shavings of black pudding. “I slept like a top. And so did you, didn’t you, dearest?”
I waited for blushes, but none came. “I’m so glad we decided to go away together, George.”
“It was the only thing we could do, darling. It was destiny, And we finally did it, after all our talking about it. I’m proud of you.”
She almost cried with gratitude at his romantic praise. “And I’m proud of you as well, my love. We’ve come through, haven’t we?”
“We have. It’s been hell for both of us, these last few weeks”—which I could well believe, after last night.
“Never mind, George, it’s over now, and our life together is just beginning.”
“I know it is, my own sweet pet.” He stopped her hand lifting a piece of bacon. “Things will never be the same for us again.”
“You’re right, George. I couldn’t bear going back to my previous life with Willy.”
“You won’t have to, darling. We’ll finish our breakfast, and then be off. It’ll be so good in Wales. The two of us can be really alone at last.”
I was facing the door, so noticed him first, and wondered how much he had heard of their sloppy badinage. He was short and stout, with thin black hair, glittery blue eyes, and lips that trembled slightly. The waistcoat of his navy blue suit had two top buttons undone, as if he had dressed in a hurry. Even someone as occasionally obtuse as me didn’t have to wonder who he was.
Edna was so shocked on spotting him that the scream wouldn’t come out of her open mouth. I didn’t think Willy (for it was none but he) had planned to find them here. At home he’d looked up clues as to where they might have scarpered and, deciding it must be to Wales (though from what evidence I knew not), he set out after them. No doubt he had been up all night, until certain vindictive shades of his intuition came clear. He then left, without breakfast, and on reaching Blackchapel thought food might be useful before any fatal encounter along the road. All I knew was that motoring atlases have a lot to answer for.
George stood, even more amazed than Edna, and the rubbery fried egg halfway out of his mouth was snapped neatly in two by an uppercut from Willy the human canonball.
It was the only blow he landed, because George, riled at losing half the egg from the jolt to his jaw, kicked Willy so decisively in the shins that he crumpled, and before reaching the floor George got him by the scruff, and dragged him into the backyard. The landlady came in to ask, perhaps, what it was about the breakfast that her guests didn’t like, and I gloated at her being in some way paid out for having billetted the pair next to me all night.
I left the rest of my breakfast to Dismal, and went outside, though didn’t suppose there would be much more fun before Willy was sent packing.
He was leaning against what had been a stable door, lip bleeding from where George had given him another, with his fist, for the loosening of a tooth from that first bang. He held him by the shoulder, and a smarter bit of barefaced lying I had never heard: “Stop being a bloody fool. I look on Edna as my sister. We had separate rooms last night, and it’ll go on like that. I’m taking her for a little holiday, and paying for it from five hundred I won on the lottery. I thought she’d earned it, working all day at that supermarket checkout. She’ll be back with you in a fortnight, so let’s have no more fuss.”
I admired his patter, but Willy cried: “I can’t believe that.”
“You’ve got no option. I can only promise she’ll be back soon enough.”
Having a fist as big as George’s in front of his nose, Willy would have to believe all that was said, but I detected something strange about his tone: “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure I’m sure.”
“That’s all right, then. I’ll just go home and wait.”
“Do, there’s a good lad.”
Willy walked out of the yard, while George went back to console Edna for the interruption, telling her they could now continue their travels without further interference.
I sensed, by the look on Willy’s smug phizzog, that he could be as sly as the next man, and could dissimulate as vividly as George who, like all first rate liars, was unable to imagine others could pull better ones, which fact I’d been aware of from early enough in my life.
When Willy didn’t return to the bar for breakfast, which seemed strange, I followed him onto the street, where George’s car was primed and ready to take off. From the doorway I saw Willy lift a stubby little black handled ex-army clasp knife from his coat pocket and, with a murderous grin, slowly pull out the spike, which was not on this occasion intended to winkle a stone from the shoe of a lame cavalry horse. Seeing him about to ram it into one of the tyres, I went across the pavement and knocked him aside. “If you do that I’ll call the cops.”
I moved back, out of fear that he would come for me, because his eyes said he would very much like to, in which case he wouldn’t have got off so lightly as he had with George. He stood a moment wondering what to do and then, closing the knife so that it took on the weight and bluntness of a knuckleduster, hit both headlamps so hard that plexiglass went showering over the tarmac. George won’t be doing any night driving for a while, I thought, which will please Edna at least.
He drove fast towards Wales in his Ford Escort, to lay I supposed so many ambushes as to drive George and Edna spinning off their trollies, at the last one making sure to off road their car and kill them. The mischief he must have had in mind didn’t bear thinking about.
George came out of the gateway with a suitcase. “Which way did the crazy bastard go?” The drama was too good to end, so I pointed the way, in the opposite direction. “Thank God for that. He’s a real bloody pest. Just because I’ve run off with his wife. Some men don’t know how lucky they are.”
“Do you do this sort of thing often?” I genuinely wanted to know.
He weighed the question. “Let’s say I don’t make a habit of it.”
“I’m a happily married man,” I said, “so I can’t entirely approve of such behaviour.”
He stowed his suitcase into the boot, moving a plastic bucket and spade for a better fit. “I’m married as well. Or I was until last night. The wife thinks I’ve gone to London to see a pal I knew in the army.”
“What foreigners can’t realise,” I said, “is that we English are the most romantic people in the world. All the same, your situation sounds a real how-do-you-do.”
He clapped the boot shut. “Oh, it is, in more ways than you might think. You wouldn’t believe half if I told you. But where would we be without that sort of thing?”